A Journey to the Bottom of the Earth

Then imagine that things went pretty well and you joined the pro surfing tour, and you started making little home-movie-ish flicks of you and your bros (both actual and figurative) traveling the world surfing, and that these little movies gained something of a cult following, which enabled you to further go on living your dream—cruising waves, making those movies, and eventually gaining the notice of a big surfwear and outdoor clothing company named Patagonia that decided to make you a brand ambassador.

That pretty much describes the life of Chris Malloy, who, now 38, is still doing what he’s done since 18. "People call me a big wave surfer and a filmmaker," he says, "but I don’t really like those titles. I’m more of a scammer. I get an idea, get really excited about it, and then convince enough people to come along to make it happen." Malloy’s latest scheme is his biggest yet: 180° South, a film about an epic journey to Patagonia, which is now playing at special engagements all across the country. Malloy’s other films have been much smaller, word-of-mouth, shoestring affairs. 180° South is different, mostly because the film is not just about a cool trip staged by him, his brother, and a buddy, but because it also features a legendary journey taken 40 years ago by two heroes of the outdoor world: Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, and Doug Thompkins, creator of a little outdoor shop, the North Face, that later became a global megabrand.

Back in 1968, Chouinard and Thompkins drove from Ventura, California, to the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile, surfing and climbing mountains along the way. Inspired by the success of Endless Summer, they documented their odyssey in a film called Mountain of Storms which they hoped would prove a hit. (It didn’t, but "Patagonia" turned out to be a pretty good brand name.) The footage from that trip is still hiding in a vault somewhere in Patagonia’s Ventura headquarters, but about 10 years ago, a Patagonia employee allowed Malloy’s old buddy Jeff to view it. Inspired, Johnson and Malloy began making plans to recreate the trip with Chouinard’s cooperation, even though by the time they got around to ecuting it, the timing wasn’t ideal. Jeff had just broken up with a serious girlfriend, and Chris was about to have a kid, prompting second thoughts that mountaineering legend Rick Ridgeway put to rest with some of most dubious parenting advice in history: "Rick was like, ’Don’t be a pussy. With my first born—during her first year of life, I was only home for one month’," says Malloy.

180° South follows Jeff’s travels to Patagonia, where he meets Chouinard and Thompkins at the massive ranch Thompkins purchased in the 1980s to preserve from development. The film’s travel narrative itself sometimes suffers from Malloy’s home-movie-style brand of storytelling and the occasional moment of heavy-handed narration, but the raw footage of such an untouched—and threatened—part of the planet is absolutely stunning. The best parts of the film are the moments with Thompkins and Chouinard—drinking yerba mate around a fire, clad in woolly sweaters—who come across as wise old visionaries from a time when men were made of much hardier stuff. One of the great unstated ironies of the film is that its final climb—Johnson, Thompkins, and Chouinard summit an unclimbed peak they name Cerro Geezer—is only a "first ascent" because when Chouinard and Thompkins had tried to climb the peak the year before, the Patagonia founder’s equipment had given out. "They didn’t make it up the first time because Yvon’s 30-year-old hiking boots disintegrated," says Johnson.

There are times when, as a viewer, you wish that Malloy would’ve cut the film differently, to focus more on the lives of the two men who watched up-close as the environmental and outdoor movements grew, evolved, and became commercialized—instead of sticking so closely to Johnson’s own personal journey. It’s not as though Malloy didn’t consider that approach. "You could easily make another film just on those guys’ lives. I have between 25 and 30 hours or so of them telling the most amazing stories," he says.

So are there plans in the works to make that film?

"The thing is," he says, "that doesn’t include an adventure for me, so I’m not that interested. I mean, I am interested, of course. But for me to do a project, I’ve got to go there and live it." Thirty hours of candid footage with Chouinard and Thompkins? Now sitting somewhere in Ventura along with their original film?

A special plea to Chris Malloy: 180° South is an entertaining, visually-stunning start. But, seriously bro. You’ve had 20 years’ worth of doing things your way. You need to get back to the editing room and make that other movie. Don’t be a pussy.